Talent quotations

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◆ Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.

- John C. Maxwell99

◆ Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you are willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.

- Lou Holtz99

◆ ...You can do something extraordinary, and something that a lot of people can't do. And if you have the opportunity to work on your gifts, it seems like a crime not to. I mean, it's just weakness to quit because something becomes too hard...

- Morgan Matson99

◆ If you're young and talented, it's like you have wings.

- Haruki Murakami99

◆ Our talents are the gift that God gives to us... What we make of our talents is our gift back to God

- Leo Buscaglia99

◆ I think that the most important thing a woman can have- next to talent, of course- is her hairdresser.

- Joan Crawford99

◆ One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

- Annie Dillard99

◆ When you have wit of your own, it's a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.

- Criss Jami99

◆ …because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.

- Louisa May Alcott99

◆ Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.

- Mel Brooks99

◆ Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life.

- Irving Stone99

◆ Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.

- Ken Robinson99

◆ We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents.

- Eric Hoffer99

◆ Sometimes we fight who we are, struggling against ourselves and our natures. But we must learn to accept who we are and appreciate who we become. We must love ourselves for what and who we are, and believe in our talents.

- Harley King99

◆ I know I have a pretty good sense for music, but she was better than me. I used to think it was such a waste! I thought, ‘If only she had started out with a good teacher and gotten the proper training, she'd be so much further along!' But I was wrong about that. She was not the kind of child who could stand proper training. There just happen to be people like that. They're blessed with this marvelous talent, but they can't make the effort to systematize it. They end up squandering it in little bits and pieces. I've seen my share of people like that. At first you think they're amazing. Like, they can sight-read some terrifically difficult piece and do a damn good job playing it all the way through. You see them do it, and you're overwhelmed. you think, ‘I could never do that in a million years.' But that's as far as they go. They can't take it any further. And why not? Because they won't put in the effort. Because they haven't had the discipline pounded into them. They've been spoiled. They have just enough talent so they've been able to play things well without any effort and they've had people telling them how great they are from the time they're little, so hard work looks stupid to them. They'll take some piece another kid has to work on for three weeks and polish it off in half the time, so the teacher figures they've put enough into it and lets them go to the next thing. And they do that in half the time and go on to the next piece. They never find out what it means to be hammered by the teacher; they lose out on a certain element required or character building. It's a tragedy.

- Haruki Murakami99